[My first blog post, back in 2009, was a far different version of the poem below. I removed it from the site when I started blogging again in 2013, and had no plans to revisit it. But for some reason, more than six years after I first wrote it, I have started writing it again—and have made it much shorter if not much else. So, gentle poem, welcome back to the internet. (And great Achilles will be sent once more to Troy!)]

The deepest past’s mere meters down,a lot of dust no doubt to thosewho made it, but even groundthis trodden—boots, bare soles—is air to a bomb.A wall that rose,and was buried in time,

[A meagre offering in honour of the birth of Publius Vergilius Maro on this day in 70 BCE.]

Phoebus descends on Megara, beats downthe crops with his coming, anxious soto see the poet shaping in songthe trip from Troy to Rome;but the healer in his eagerness fallsin weight too great even for thismortal of immortal fame, who palesbeneath the gaze of needy gods.

Now from Andes to the Andes Virgil’s dancinglines, lightfoot and firebright,sound, but no more the slow voice speaksfleet Latin, spells the mouth out incantation;still, folding its bones, from Bangalore, from Beijingto Brindisi, the sea holds benthicpeacefulness, and all is quietlyfull of the sound of surrounding water: heavyin its depth and gravity, light as lightsaturating sky, inseparable, like windin air, or woven in sea like the smoky foamwringing the waving wash; still lifebeats on, numbers’ and nature’s forces soakingthe sponge of brain, of skin, of eye, of ear, of lung,of gill; and still from distant rooftopstwists the smoke—welcomeor war. See them!—By campfire, farm–fire, hill–fire, men–at–arms, at ploughs, at pipes,warming to song.

Nothing is speaking to human consciousness:
not the gusts of Olympus blustering our brains;
not the gush of the Ganges bubbling our bodies;
not the snowflake stars dusting the black, or the silences between them, no—
we are just talking to ourselves—

Mother: What, Dan?Me: Nuthin, I was just talkin to meself.Mother: Well shur ya couldn’t talk to a nicer fella.
(Well, mothers are supposed to love their sons,
and I suppose most of them do.)

No—we are just talking to ourselves,
our brains rustling: crown of thoughts
a crown of leaves, branches spreading in our heads,
rooting down in the dumb limbs,
spine-trunk, root-nerve, sap-blood, leaves
greening and browning and new buds blooming,
fruits and seeds,
breezes the branches make themselves
by growing (a flung violin makes music too),
and “Timmmmburrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”!—

Ah the mouths we all are
Tongue-soft and tooth-hard
Spit-shined and enamelled
But red raw and rotten
Suckling and snapping
Laughing and grinding
Talking to ourselves
(Fill it and fill it—I’m teaching myself Latin!—
But there’s always a hole in the middle)

wordsecho with the ghostsof almost wholly-lost worlds but for them nothing remains at all—nothing words holdthough only airily the fragile bonesof yesterday loose as breath but holding yet and tightening